Slovakia 2 euros 2015 - 30th anniversary of the EU flag

In July 2015, the 19 euro-area countries jointly issued a commemorative euro coin celebrating 30 years of the EU flag. Regardless of the country, it bears the same design on the national side, normally reserved for a motif specific to that country.

This is the fourth time the euro-area members have decided to collectively issue a commemorative coin: The first was in 2007 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the second time was in 2009 when sixteen countries commemorated 10 years of the EMU and the third time in 2012 to mark 10 years of euro cash. A professional jury selected five coin designs among the 62 designs submitted by Euro area mints. Euro-area citizens and residents were invited to select the winning design by public web-voting until 27 May 2015.

The winning design of the online vote was by the hand of Georgios Stamatopoulos from the Bank Of Greece. His proposal had been preselected by the jury alongside designs from Spain, Slovenia, Italy and Cyprus. Marking the 30th anniversary of the EU flag, Stamatopoulos' entry depicts 12 people forming a human chain around that flag with the 12 gold stars on a blue background. The design was chosen by 30 percent of 100,000 voters in the online competition by the European Commission. Its Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said the coin celebrated a key moment of the adoption of the flag as the EU's official emblem.